PhotoShop:Paint a flower petal with an alpha channel. Save as a TIFF file in your Maya scene directory. Do the same for a leaf. They both should be oriented like this image with a few pixels below in the alpha channel. (This fixes a rendering issue with quadratic sampeling.)

Use the curve to move the flowers around the scene, check Windows->General Editors-> Hypergraph: Hierarchy window to find the curve.

Note: Mental Ray and Arnold will not render Maya Paint Effects. Use Modify->Convert->Paint Effects to Polygons->Select Quad output.The paints Effects history still controls the poly flowers, use the history to modify.

When rendering with Arnold, you will need to create a new shader for the leaves and the petals.You will need to use the aiStandard Surface Shader. Find this Material under the Arnold Shader node in the Hypershade window.Select the petalsCheck off Opaque under the Arnold drop-down in the Attribute EditorUse the right mouse key over one of the shader balls to bring up the marking menu, select Assign Material to Selection.Under Base, click the Map Button across from Color.Under the Create Render Node window:Click File and add the petal TIFF file that you used on your BrushUnder Specular, set IOR (Index of Refraction) to 1Under Transmission set Weight to 0Under Geometry, click the Map Button across from Opacity.Under the Create Render Node window:Click File and add a TIFF file with the alpha channel of the petal used on your Brush.